In the past year or so my strength has not been where I expect it to be. My squat, bench press, and deadlift one rep maxes have been stagnating. I figured it was time to start planning my training more intelligently. This is difficult to do for an individual. Traditional statistical approaches don’t seem to work for the following reasons: (1) We are not estimating population level parameters; (2) We are not forecasting time series trends, because we are experimentally altering the process which governs that trend.
In addition, an experiment with only myself would be infeasible. Even if I could expose myself to, say, 4 experimental 10-week programs and one control program multiple times, that would take years to complete. I need to know what will work for me in a few months. To overcome the problem and facilitate progress within weeks to months, I had to build a framework of training where I would either directly make progress in strength or obtain information that would enable me to make progress in future training blocks (even if no progress was made in the current block). I decided to use adopt a paradigm similar to one constructed by Mike Tuscherer known as “emerging strategies”. (If you’re interested, here’s his lecture on the topic).
Let each workout be called a “session”. Each session is composed of sets. Each set has a certain exercise associated with it, a certain number of repetitions, and a rate of Perceived exertion on a scale of 10) categories (not exercises, we’ll see why soon), three of which are relevant in this analysis (though there are more than this to consider): horizontal push (bench press variations, pushups, dips, etc.), squat variations, and deadlift variations. Each movement category has a primary exercise associated with it and many secondary exercises. The primary exercise in a movement category is the one you’re directly trying to increase. In my case, these exercises were the lowbar squat, the bench press (touch and go), and the conventional deadlift. All other exercises in each movement category are considered secondary. Each movement
The smallest repeatable sequencing of sessions. It is the sequencing that is repeatable, not the session itself! For example, I lift every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. That is a repeatable sequence, regardless of what movements each session consists
Potential insights:
1.) natural “peak” occurs approximately 4-5 weeks into the block across these lifts.
2.) The stall/decrease may have occurred for one of two reasons (most likely)
too much volume –> need to drop volume for a week or two and recover. (I tried this, and it didn’t work)
too little volume –> not enough of a stimulus, increase volume. (Since option 1 didn’t work, I tried this in the subsequent block)
Leading into the next block, I decided to increase the sets/week and decrease intensity accordingly. In the 3rd block, I tried to keep most variables similar to the second, except I “front loaded” volume on the squat (performed most of the high volume weeks in the first portion of the block). I also increased the bench volume. Let’s see the results of adjusting the training parameters in a meta-block review. I’ll examine the only the squat for the sake of brevity…
The greatest variables to check are volume and intensity, followed by frequency (provided exercise selection is relatively specific). We look at the following metrics
insights from comparing blocks 1 to 2 and 3…
Insights from comparing blocks 2 and 3…
Going forward…